Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-05-15
A SCIENTIFIC VISITOR.
A Picked Up Lesson In New School
Of PHILOSOPHICAL Auxiliary
for Mr.. Riede
The Light of Heaven Does Not Shine In
Her Beautiful Blue Eyes-It ID Only
Carbon-Religion Analysed.


the hotel surrounded by knot of eager
! listeners. He was never alone, and no
Delphisn Oracle ever spoke with more
self confidence or was listened to with
more interest. Occasionally some one
would venture to ask question; outside
of this the silence was broken only by the
voice of the central figure. A GAZETTE
reporter Joined the group to-day unob-
served, and gathered the following OBJ
servations, the accuracy of which he
trusts to memory: "Every atom and
molecule has its own peculiar shape;
every acid and alkaloid can be distin-
guished in this way. The chemical prop
| critics of matter are known by their shape
and then nature can be told by their
effects. The chemistry of the present
! day, taught in our schools, is faulty. The
greatest service a man could Go would
! be to tear up the text books and write
! sensible ones, with less of theory and
more of thought; with less airy specula-
| ton and more demonstration. Students
nowadays are taught in books which are
g bundle of contradictions. Stupid errors
aFe3submitted to them in the most solemn
manner. as fundamental principles, and
they are given picked examples to work
cut by those principles and work them
Tout simply because the alleged principles
do not apply. Other sciences are the
ksame. The professors cling to hoary er-
rors. l myself have worked and worried
a whole year trying to reconcile the &C
cepted theory of the size of the sun and
its distance from the earth with facts and
common sense. was loathEto break too
O11 Of O.
called science. l tried to bend the facts
in obedience to foolish prejudice, but
| facts will not bend. One fact will fit all
other facts the world over and there is no
Jar, no discord. A perfect cube is per
feet fact. With perfect cubes you can
build perfect cubes, no matter to what
size you carry your undertaking. 1t is
only where falsehood is sought to be in
troduced that you find trouble"
''Do you accept the theory of the cor
respondent of THE GAZETTE who claims
that the sun is only 100000 miles from
the earth?" ventured bystander.
ono, not exactly. The sun Is little
over 5000, 900 miles from the earth, not
5000, 900, nor yet 95,000,000 as some
scientists say. That question puzzled
me more than little, and for the reason
to discard foolish errors. Common sense
taught me that the sun was not the vast
orb which we have been taught to be-
lievesit. Any one who has ever studied
mechanics must be shocked at the prOdi-
gal waste of power which would result if
the diameter of the sun was $50, 900 miles.
Just why any sensible man could allow
himself TO believe that it would take all
| this power, all this machinery, to run
| eight planets and few satellites cannot
| seeI never could believe it, but l was
| 10th, as l said before, to make my de-
parture from accepted theories too radi-
cal and, against my better Judgment, l
tried to figure it out by placing the diam
eter of the sun at $4,000 miles. These
| figures will stand a partial test, but they
are not accurate. l have always made II
q rule to discard a principle just the
moment found that it was not universal
| in It's application. There can be no eX-
ceptions to fundamental principles. Facts
are facts. cube is cube and must be
q cube under all circumstances; you can
not make triangle out of it one time or
a square another. Whenever | find
| q principle that does not
stand every conceivable test, throw it
away and look for another that will. At
ter trying the sun on the basis of diam
eter of $4,000 miles found that was
wrong. l then reduced my figures Just
half, and found that had reached the
true figures. | can convince any astrOn-
omer that l am right. There is nothing
difficult about it when once you have the
proper starting point. I can take piece
of paper and a compass and tell Just
when and where every planet is; where
and when the eclipses of the sun and
moon occur, and what causes them; why
it is that if we have new moon to-day
we will not have new moon on this day
again for nineteen years, and other ques-
tions of equal abStrusenes5. l can snow
it and demonstrate it by simple geOmetri-
caI principles so that any one may under
stand it. There are certain fundamental
principles which will enable man to
solve any problem in any of the sciences
physic, chemistry or astrOnomy-and it
does not matter whether he has ever heard
of the questions or not. The sciences are
locked and interlaced SO that to under
stand one thoroughly you must under
stand all. All power and force can be
ascertained; everything about states and
dynamics, about weight, attraction and
gravitation. Supposing l was to tell
you that If that building yon'
der" pointing to four
i story brick, "was an absolute solid, thai
i it would have no weight and could be
lifted by one man? You would think il
strange, but it is a fact capable Of
demonstration. It would not raise from
the ground and wander through space Of
Its own volition, because the current
Of ether passing around it would drive il
gently towards the earth, but that current
would be weak and could be overcome by
the5force of one man. Every atom il
Sold. The finer you grind rock the
greater is its tendency to rise in the all
or be driven around by the winds. Burr
all the electricity out of a piece Of iror
and you have handful of dust. So with 6
larger body as with a small, the nearer il
approaches to an absolute solid the
lighter it becomes, for the simple reason
that the forces of attraction have no hold
on it and no power over it,
"Do you accept the theory that the
earth is elliptlcal?" queried drummer,
who desired the conversation to continue
81 do not; believe the earth is per-
fectlY round with only bare possibility
of its being ellipital. say the bare
possibility, shorn of all vestiges Of
| probability -